


The Cold Hard Hour

by Issay



Series: Surprise Crossovers [8]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015), Torchwood
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, M/M, Moneypenny is a BAMF, Post-SPECTRE, Q has cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 17:14:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5172494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Issay/pseuds/Issay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He left. He really left."<br/>"I know, Q. Drink."<br/>"He left with her, Moneypenny. I can't believe that he left with her."<br/>"Here, drink some more."<br/>"You're a good friend, Eve."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cold Hard Hour


    _It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour_
    _which the night fastens to all the timetables._

Pablo Neruda, “A Song of Despair”

  


"He left. He really left."

"I know, Q. Drink."

"He left with her, Moneypenny. I can't believe that he left with her."

"Here, drink some more."

"You're a good friend, Eve."

"I'm trying, Q."

"He really left me, didn't he? He took the car I rebuilt for him and left me with nothing."

"Yes, love. He did."

*

The first time Q slept with Bond it was out of curiosity. The man was organically unable to stop flirting and Q simply used it, he wanted to know what the hype was all about, was it such a bad thing to do? 007 had a reputation. And Q was working 24/7, he was a too-thin, uninteresting boffin with a classified job and absolutely no time to meet new people. He was lonely. It wasn't his fault. And everyone was talking about Bond's skills in bed.

And God, was it worth it. The pressure, the exquisite tactile pleasure drawn from simple skin to skin contact, the heat between two bodies. It wasn't that sex was bad, oh no, it was the earth-shattering kind that left him breathless and feeling that something has shifted, changed. But after... The after was what Q wanted. Shared comfortable silence of two sated people touching from neck to toes, bigger body shielding his smaller one from the world and his big, big brain finally quiet. James' breath on Q's neck, warm and faintly smelling of whiskey and curry they had before. Fingers playing with his hair, drawing shapes on his skin. Feeling of peace and safety as he fell asleep, held in strong, trustworthy embrace.

Q tries to forget that in the morning he woke up alone and cold.

*

"How is he?"

"I'm not talking to you about him, Bond."

"Oooh, not it's Bond, not James?"

"You're an asshole, _James._ "

"Yes. Yes I am."

(Moment of silence, from his side she can hear children laughing somewhere, waves crashing on sea shore.)

"So how is he, Eve?"

“Fuck off, James.”

*

The second time it's because Q's pissed, he's so pissed and Bond is still bleeding and it doesn't take much to press an appropriate button and close Q's workshop so others can't enter.

"Don't do that," barks Q when he pins clearly surprised agent to the wall. "Don't you dare dying on my watch."

Bond kisses him, it's full of teeth and bites, Q can feel blood on his tongue and strangely it somehow turns him on even more. They bite and scratch and growl as they shed clothes, some stitches get ripped, nothing Q's nimble fingers can't fix. But later, not now, no, now it's the time for purple bruises on Q's sickly pale skin and roughly thrusts of Bond's fingers. It's time for a too quick, heated fuck that has MI6 Quartermaster crying out, hands splayed against the dark stone of the wall.

"I'll try not to die," murmurs Bond into his ear and Q whimpers.

*

"Third?"

"Third was just after Mexico. Just before it all went to hell."

*

Third was a goodbye.

Neither of them knew it then but Q thinks now he could feel it in the air. It was the slow one, the one with holding hands as if it was the only thing stopping one from leaving the other. It was the one with deep, intimate kisses and whispered promises that would be broken not long after that, the one when Q looked into James' eyes as he came.

Q tries so hard to forget about that one but the memory won't stop haunting him.

*

"I'm pathetic, aren't I? He slept with me, so what? It's not like we were married or anything. Not a big deal. Three night stand, that's all."

"Don't say it like that. It mattered to you."

"It didn't to him."

*

The next time Bond calls her, Eve doesn't answer. She gently touches the "decline" button and goes about her day, not thinking about the retired 007 anymore.

It's not like they don't have anything to do, on the contrary: ever since Spectre surfaced, they've been working more than ever. At least M is happy, not that this ridiculous merge with MI5 is over and done with, the government once again sees the need for the double-oh program and all of MI6 branches working on full capacity. She knows from Tanner that they are now actively cooperating with Kingsman agency, something that has been unheard of - an age-old rivalry between the two agencies apparently took the back seat now.

Eve makes two cups of coffee, ignores Bond's name on her cell's screen and leaves for Q branch, where their Quartermaster and his minions work on dismantling Spectre's financials.

*

"Eve..."

"Stop calling. He's dating someone."

"What? Who?"

"Bond, you left. You don't have the right to call me and ask how he's doing. Bye."

She ends the call before he realizes she lied.

*

In the end, Q does go out with a tech from Kingsman. He's everything Bond wasn't, owns a blue World War II coat and speaks of things the way Q understands and can relate to. They fuck. It's good. Very good, even, there's coffee in the morning and his cats adore the man. Jack. His name was Jack.

Q never calls him again.

*

"What."

"We need you to come in."

"Eve, I'm retired. Find someone else and fuck off."

"Bond. It's all hands on deck. Spectre went after Q-branch."

James looks at Madeleine, looks at the sunset over Florence. He got out. He knows that if he goes to London, there will be no coming back.

"How many dead?"

Eve sighs deeply, he almost sees how she's rubbing her forehead, fixes her hair with one hand. She's probably still at work, it's still not that late in London.

"Thirty six dead, hundred and fifteen wounded. They sent in a fucking army, first blast dealt with electricity and backup generators. Bond, they knew where to go, they had intel only someone from the inside could give them. We have an infestation problem. A bad one."

"Q?"

There's a long silence and he knows that whatever she's going to say next, he's not going to like it. So he prepares for the news the best he can, he hides under the 007 persona and his eyes go cold. Now there's a thick wall between him and the world. Nothing can hurt him.

"Three gunshot wounds, brain bleed. He's in a coma."

It still hurts.

"I'll be there in six hours."

*

He's pale, lifeless and there's a machine breathing for him. Bond takes a long time, just standing there, hands on Q's feet - he can feel that they are cold even through the hospital blanket - and watching. He doesn't know how much time passes. It feels like whole eternity, counted only by soft beeping of the machinery.

"It wouldn't have happened if I haven't left," he says eventually. She's standing in the doorway, the ever present watcher, the keeper of secrets. One day, James thinks, she is going to take over as M. Old M, his M, groomed her for it. Moneypenny knows it all.

"No. It wouldn't."

Eve has no mercy but it's okay. He can take it.

*

It ends with half of Greenwich in ruins, headcount higher than he wants to think of and a couple of scrapes and bruises. Tanner and M are torn somewhere between impossibly pissed off, proud and happy because this ends Spectre, this kills the octopus. Good riddance, please, don't come back for more.

Madeleine sends the ring back with a note that his things will follow. She asks him not to look for her, that she doesn't want to do this anymore. Bond can't bring himself to care. The wall is too thick.

The traitor was the new 007, a young kid straight from Royal Marines. James dispatches him with a clean shot between kid's eyes and reclaims his license to kill. And then, ignoring M's wish to be debriefed (what the fuck is he supposed to debrief him on? How it felt to pull the trigger? That he saw Q's face, deathly pale in hospital bed, as he was killing the kid?), goes to the hospital.

Q wakes up three weeks after Spectre falls with no recollection of anything since Bond left for Mexico and demands a laptop because he has months of work to catch up on. But he smiles at James, softly and warmly, and lets him cuddle and distract Q.

His kisses taste like a second chance.

**Author's Note:**

> This is more of a sketch than a story itself - it's NaNoWriMo, I don't really have time for longer fics. If anyone wants to take the idea and expand it, you're welcome to do it, just let me know when you've published so I can put it here :)
> 
>  
> 
> [Find me on tumblr!](http://issayscorner.tumblr.com/)


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